Spectators Mario Vasquez of Redondo Beach and his son Mario Jr., 2, watch as Endeavour prepares to land at Los Angeles International Airport Friday. In a few weeks, the shuttle will travel through the city's streets to its new home at the California Science Center.

Riding piggy-back atop a Boeing 747, the shuttle performed a fly-by at several iconic spots, from Malibu and Santa Monica to the Getty Center, the Griffith Observatory, and Vandenberg Air Force Base. It also flew past the Hollywood sign.

On Twitter, actor John Gallagher, Jr., put it this way: "Eating cereal in your robe & gazing out the window is exciting enough but when u see a space shuttle on a plane fly by H'wood sign? Woweee!"

On its Twitter feed, the California Science Center, which will put Endeavor on permanent display, announced "Somebody pinch us. Because this. Is. Unreal."

As you might imagine, the shuttle didn't exactly taxi to a gate at Los Angeles International Airport. Instead, it'll spend a few weeks in a United Airlines hangar, being prepared for its final journey — by land - to the science center. The center has posted a map of that route, to allow spectators to watch the shuttle drive by in about three weeks.

As we reported earlier this month, the 12-mile route between the airport and the shuttle's final home had to be cleared of several hundred trees, to make room for the spacecraft's 78-foot wingspan.